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FIFA Online coming to Europe in June

Published on 1st February 2010 by Joe Martin

EA's free to play football game, FIFA Online, will finally become available across Europe in June this year.

Electronic Arts has announced that it will be rolling out the free to play football game FIFA Online across the world later this year, with the game scheduled to hit Europe in June 2010.

FIFA Online is EA's free multiplayer football - or 'soccer', if you must - game that mixes RPG aspects with the usual sporty mechanics. It actually launched a while ago, but until now it's only been available in some Asian countries.

While the game is technically free for all players, EA is hoping to profit from the game by means of microtransactions - selling extra kit to players that either allow customisation or allow small advantages over non-paying players. It's the same system that was used in EA's free to play shooter Battlefield Heroes and we didn't particularly like it back then.

EA has recently changed the prices of items in Battlefield Heroes too, sparking protests that the balance has shifted to heavily favour paying customers, according to ShackNews.

The initial June release of FIFA Online will be an English-only beta, but EA says that other European languages and an American client will be rolled out within two years - an unusually long wait.

A closed beta of the game will kick off later this week and you can sign up for it over at the official FIFA Online site.

Let us know what you think of free to play multiplayer games in the forums.

8 Comments

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yakyb 1st February 2010, 12:23

i have always liked the idea of games like this but to charge for boots that kick 10% harder or run 5% faster (if that is the plan) just isn't right

Sifter3000 1st February 2010, 12:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by yakyb
i have always liked the idea of games like this but to charge for boots that kick 10% harder or run 5% faster (if that is the plan) just isn't right

Seems quite appropriate to have a football game where money = more success, it's just like real life.

V3ctor 1st February 2010, 12:47

I'm just afraid in some years all game will be like this :O

yakyb 1st February 2010, 13:17

^^
not the games i play (i.e. not if no-one plays them)

LeMaltor 1st February 2010, 13:22

Is this next gen or fifa 08 rebadged......again.

Farfalho 1st February 2010, 18:34

I'd rather wait for something similar from PES. But until now I see a flaw in that game, not because it's Fifa but for football games, the annoying and omnipresent lag. I've played PES online and the lag can create some odd stuff, ball suddenly disappears from your feet or appears magically on your oponent's feet. Until the lag becomes a thing very rare to happen, this kind of game will fail to a certain level

MacWalka 2nd February 2010, 08:42

I just don't understand why football games are so laggy, they aren't exactly the most graphically challenging or have the most demanding physics around yet they do suffer horrible lag.

Abhorsen 2nd February 2010, 09:25

Ugh you can only sign up from home really, the system profiler needs to check your hardware and theres no way to "Do this later". So not suitable at work...